College conspiracy ???

I subscribe to and receive email reports from the National Inflation Association. Recently I viewed the video they created on the “College Conspiracy”. It can be viewed at their site but the information that follows comes from one of their email newsletters.


I find the results of the surveys done by various media sources rather interesting and somewhat saddening. That a young person is encouraged to attend college and get a degree, only to end up with thousands of dollars of debt and a job that barely pays them enough to live day to day, never mind pay back the mountain of debt they incurred! Read the comments below and draw your own conclusions!

On Thursday's cover of the New York Times, Catherine Rampell wrote an article entitled 'Many With New College Degree Find the Job Market Humbling'. According to the New York Times article, only 56% of college graduates in 2010 were able to get a job by this spring, compared to 90% of the graduates in years 2006 and 2007. Only half of those finding a job, found a job where their degree was required. The median starting salary for college graduates last year was $27,000, down 10% from the $30,000 starting income in years 2006 to 2008.

One of NIA's expert guests in 'College Conspiracy' was Brian Mackey, a national recruitment manager for GEI Consultants. He said in our movie that 60% of college graduates are now being employed in low skill jobs where their college degree wasn't even required. NIA's research has uncovered that 70% of high school graduates have been successful at getting these exact same jobs without even needing a college degree. Mackey also pointed out in 'College Conspiracy' that 20% all new waiter and waitress positions are being filled by college graduates. The New York Times article added to Mackey's point, reporting in their cover story that college graduates aged 25 to 34 working in the food service industry at bars and restaurants increased 17% in 2009 over 2008.

Bloomberg aired a live television segment on Thursday, 'Is a 4-Year College Degree Worth the Cost?' and cited a poll that shows 57% of U.S. adults say college is not worth the price with 75% of U.S. adults saying college is unaffordable. Bloomberg had on a guest Alexis Ohanian, co-founder of Reddit.com, who said, "there are plenty of students out there who would really benefit from just avoiding a lot of the college stuff and just trying to create something". NIA agrees with Ohanian that the experience of trying to create a job in the real world will do most Americans a lot more good than getting deeply into debt to attend college. Ohanian says that his company and other firms in Silicon Valley hire employees based entirely on their experience and past accomplishments and not a college degree.

NBC News anchor Brian Williams came out with a report Thursday night about the college bubble in a segment entitled, 'Education Nation'. Williams reported many of the basic facts from 'College Conspiracy' including that student loans are one of the few types of debts you can't get rid of in bankruptcy and that total student loan debt is now above $800 billion and exceeds credit card debt. NBC News spoke to one prospective student who has chosen to attend a community college rather than the prestigious $50,000 per year school she was accepted to, saying, "I don't want to graduate with a bachelor's degree with $80,000 worth of debt."